The Medill School of Journalism released its annual Medill State of Local News Report on Wednesday, revealing that 127 local newspapers were shuttered in the last year alone.
The annual report tracks the condition of local news outlets nationwide. This year marks the third year of the study and is the first led by Zachary Metzger, the project’s director.
Some of the closures were newspapers run by large publishers such as Gannett and Alden Global Capital’s MediaNews Group, but a significant number were run by smaller chains or were independent publications.
Since 2005, the number of local newspapers has declined by over 3,000, from almost 7,500 to about 4,500 today.
“This research shows that the crisis in local news is deepening, and fewer Americans have access to news they need about their communities to be informed citizens,” Medill Senior Associate Dean Tim Franklin, director of the Medill Local News Initiative, said in a Wednesday news release.
The report highlights the continued proliferation of news deserts (counties with no local news outlet producing original content), which now total 208, leaving over 3.5 million people without a newspaper in their county.
News deserts tend to be rural counties, and their residents tend to be older and less well-educated. The median household income in a news desert is, on average, $57,456, significantly less than the national average of $74,580.
The report uses predictive modeling to develop a “Watch List” of counties at risk of becoming news deserts, and this year saw 22% increase in the number of counties on that list. Those at-risk counties and news desert counties leave almost 55 million people without a reliable local news source.
“The gulf between journalism haves and have-nots is continuing to grow. Yet there remains a strong desire for original local reporting,” Metzger said in the release. “The need now is to match that desire with support, investment and policy.”
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